100 classic Atari games for iOS out now, iCade cabinet coming in June

Play your favorite Atari arcade and 2600 games on your iOS device with Atari's …

Atari announced on Tuesday that it is launchingAtari's Greatest Hits, a collection of 18 arcade classics and 82 Atari 2600 console games, for iOS. The free app includes the original '70s arcade classic Pong, with the other 99 games available via in-app purchase. The app runs on iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads, and it will be the first to support the iCade mini iPad arcade cabinet set to ship this June.

The game includes access to arcade classics like Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, Battlezone, Missile Command, Crystal Castles, and Tempest. Additionally, users can play a selection of Atari 2600 games like Combat, Adventure, Night Driver, Star Raiders, Outlaw, all the Real Sports titles, and Yars Revenge. The games come in 99¢ four-packs that are loosely theme-based—the "Super Breakout Pack" includes Super Breakout, Breakout, Off-the-Wall, and Circus Atari, while the "Tic-Tac-Toe Pack" includes 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, A Game of Concentration, Backgammon, and Brain Games. You can also buy all 100 games for a single $14.99 in-app purchase if you're so inclined. Several of the titles include support for multiplayer play with other iOS users via Bluetooth.

Notably, Atari's Greatest Hits is designed to work with the iCade, an enclosure designed to transform the iPad into a miniature arcade cabinet complete with joystick and an array of buttons. The device was first designed by online retailer ThinkGeek as one of its annual April Fool's Day fake product launches last year, but its popularity online attracted the attention of audio peripheral maker ION Audio.

ThinkGeek and ION Audio have partnered to make the iCade a reality. Atari's Greatest Hits is the first game to support the device.

"In the case of iCade, which was [ThinkGeek's] 2010 April Fools product, we reached out to them and told them that not only was the idea a great one, but that it was something that we thought we could turn into a real product," Adam Cohen, Director of Marketing and Business Development, told Ars in January. ION showed off a prototype unit at CES, featuring an early build of Atari's iOS port of Asteroids, to a receptive audience. ThinkGeek has since said that the final design (shown above) is in production, and that it will begin accepting orders for the $100 iCade in early June.

Atari's Greatest Hits is the only game so far that supports the iCade, but the device sends standard Bluetooth keyboard commands in response to joystick movement or button presses, so adding support for the device is relatively trivial. Hopefully more arcade-style games will add support if the device proves as popular in real life as it was as an April Fool's joke. I'm looking at you, Capcom Arcade.

Atari's Greatest Hits is now available in the New Zealand App Store, and is slowly rolling out to other App Stores throughout the day. It should be available in the US App Store later tonight, according to Touch Arcade.